In Review: Star Trek: Year Five #14

Synopsis: As Captain Kirk prepares to run the gauntlet of his Klingon persecutors, Dr. McCoy attempts to expose a disturbing secret that stretches to the highest levels of Starfleet Medical, even if it costs him his career.

The Story

Captain Kirk prepares to answer for his crimes against the Klingon Empire and run their Gauntlet. While undergoing unimaginable humiliation and punishment at the hands of the Klingon’s several of Kirk’s adventures are referenced. Amongst them is ‘The Trouble with Tribbles’, which the Klingon’s were not impressed about to his tryst with ‘Elaan of Troyius‘ and a Klingon that was dishonored because of that.

While Kirk Defends the Federation and his actions. McCoy and Spock have uncovered a conspiracy within the fleet and have figured out that their host Admiral Koraxi is at the head of it.

The Artwork

Angel Hernandez puts in some brilliant work for this issue, which sees Kirk beaten to within an inch of his life. The action is thick and fast and some of the panels are so much more bloody and violent than anything we’d ever have seen on the original ‘Star Trek’ series. The best panel of action comes when Kirk is fighting his accuser and is about to be beamed off of the Klingon vessel. By comparison, some of the more static conversation panels were a tad weak when it came to the character likenesses from distance angles, which I suspect may have been done on purpose to try and save time because have seen better work from Hernandez.

Overall

Colin Kelly does a pretty solid job of closing out this mini-story arc, which sees Kirk and his crew welcomed back to Federation space. Kelly weaved together a conspiracy storyline that is worthy of song and fire and was glorious to the point when it will be sung with honor by future Klingons.

We’re left with an open-ended close to the story as we wait with bated breath to find out if Kirk and his crew will take a side trip to investigate an area of space that has gone unexplored. It’s just enough to whet our appetites for next month’s installment.